The state's cannabis regulator has made zero progress in increasing its staffing levels months after Gov. Kathy Hochul began tearing the agency apart.
Felicia Reid, acting executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management, said in an interview with Spectrum News last week that her understaffed agency now employs 180 people. That's the same amount of staffers OCM employed in April, according to a blistering report Hochul commissioned to point out some failures of the cannabis regulator.
"We are going to prioritize hiring and training new staff capable of strengthening key agency operations, fill senior roles focused on agency operations, customer service, internal controls," Hochul told reporters at a press conference announcing what she called an "overhaul" of the agency she previously described as a "disaster."
The Post reported last month that several OCM's senior employees were leaving the agency, including key staffers focused on health and safety, licensing, and legal matters.
Chris Alexander, then head of OCM, resigned a week after Hochul delivered her report after previously telling the governor he planned to stay on through September.
A spokesperson for OCM didn't provide comment on why the agency hasn't retained and recruited the additional 65 positions the April report said it still needed to fill, but noted that the agency's director of health and safety is no longer leaving.
Read more at: nypost.com